To be Torn
by magically-muddled
Summary: When the witches promised payback, they meant it - it was beautiful, twisted and cruel. Something Klaus Mikaelson himself would've been proud of...


**A/N**: Can I just say a massive thank you to my lovely beta Light-and-Smoke? She's a star, putting up with my half-baked ideas and badly written nonsense. (If you haven't read Sunlight, _do it _and just bask in all the Klaroline feels. And her new story, Petrova's Angels is pretty awesome too, so go now!)

To warn you, this story isn't canon compliant - **essentially 4x16 and everything that ensued didn't happen.**

Thank you so much for reading,

LoveYouBye!x

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He prowled.

It was the only way to describe it; the continual, repetive way in which he stalked in front of the mahogny frame. His body was frozen in a protective stance, coiled, ready to pounce - anyone who knew him could see it was all wrong. Klaus was never on the defence - no, attack was the only way in which he lived his life. Even centuries of evading Mikael had an air of defiance about it - Klaus hid in luxurious sight. He would run, yes, but his tail would never be between his legs.

_Too little, too late._

He paused, angling his body towards the door, straining to hear even the slightest whisper from the room, but nothing. His palm reached for the handle, where it ghosted for a second, before it dropped to his side again.

A melancholy smile slid across Rebekah's features as she remembered the terrible moments from earlier that day, watching Klaus all the while - he returned to stalking in front of the door, every inch the fierce wolf protecting it's mate.

_And there lay the tragedy of it all..._

**"Bloody hell, will you ever accept that we don't eat pancakes?" Rebekah muttered, pushing an abandoned bowl of batter away from her morning coffee. Every available surface of the kitchen was dusted a snowy white, with more than one eggshell crunching underfoot.**

**"Nope" Caroline grinned cheerily, popping the 'p' as she spooned a fresh batch into the pan, "Pancakes are yummy. Y'know, you don't have to be a moody vampire all the time, Beks"**

**"Only when your brother's strumpet is torturing me with her mediocre cooking" Rebekah's words and grin dripped with good-natured malice. They had sniped and bit at each other for roughly the first year of Caroline and Klaus' relationship, but over time that had dulled, and a mutual understanding and fondness developing between the pair.**

**Not that they didn't fight on occasion. Usually an occasion centered on shoes.**

**"Don't be so moody Bex"**

**"What's my brother done to put you in such a good mood?" At the quirk of Caroline's eyebrows and _that_ telltale smirk on her lips, Rebekah covered her eyes as though the pair were engaged in a lewd act on the breakfast counter, "Oh God, do I really want to know?"**

**Caroline rolled her eyes, but leaned forward conspiratorially all the same. "He's taking me to see the Northern Lights"**

**Rebekah couldn't help but smile. No wonder her brother adored touring the world with his little blonde vampire. The look that crossed her face, so full of child-like excitement and hope, would warm even the coldest of hearts.**

**"And so the pancakes are a thank you?"**

**"One of many." Caroline promised with a grin, dodging the spatula and the loud "EW!" that were thrown her way, "Y'know, you're really going to have to-"**

**It happened all at once - Rebekah could see it, right in front of her eyes, each painstaking moment as clear as the last. Caroline froze, her eyes fixed on a point just above the other blonde's shoulder. Like a mirror being hit, there was the initial impact. The visible fracture that crossed Caroline's features was hard and clear and frightening, for both of them. Caroline knew what was happening, her breathing growing erratic and pained.**

**Her eyes - that only a few moments ago were swimming with happiness - drained, the spell splintering across her mind. It was infinitely more terrifying, the loss of everything. She was nothing more than a statue, her face _Caroline_, but at same time, _not_ Caroline. She hit the ground before Rebekah even knew what do, and with it, the life they had built shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.**

**She woke the minute the Original grasped her shoulders, her azure eyes flying open, panicked and petrified, "_Wh-wh-what's happening?! Who are you? What did you do to me?_"**

**"No, no, no, no no" Rebekah whispered, trying to steady the blonde, grasping her chin tightly, pupils dilating, "You can remember me. You remember Nik"**

**Caroline thrashed away. "Who are you?! _What's happening_?!"**

**Rebekah paused, knowing magic when she saw it. When she felt it. It radiated off Caroline, dark and thick like the fog that clogged her friend's mind. Wanting to relieve the panic, and in a feeble attempt to ease the pain (whose pain, she wasn't exactly sure) she gripped Caroline under the chin, pulling upwards with a sickening crunch...**

She blinked the memory away, handing a crystal tumbler to Elijah, whose chocolate eyes snapped away from the brother he had surveyed for ten minutes. Nothing had changed, nothing _could_ change, _nothing_ would stop the coiled spring that was his little brother.

Elijah swirled the amber liquid before taking a long sip, "And so, what now?"

"I was thinking Florence... or maybe Tuscany? It has been a couple of hundred years" Rebekah lay back on the chaise, her eyes failing to match her relaxed posture.

Elijah nodded, "Will he leave her?"

"He has no choice"

Klaus paused, his eyes continuing to burn into the dark mahogany in front of him.

"Will he leave her?" Elijah repeated.

Rebekah paused, a cynical sneer on the tip of her tongue. However, the words from her lips were completely and utterly heartfelt, "There is no other way"

"It is irreversible?" Elijah questioned half heartedly.

Rebekah couldn't nod, couldn't confirm it. It would only cement the fact that it had happened. They had wreaked the most terrible revenge. It had been confirmed by the oldest witch they knew, only one of a few that remained loyal to the Mikaelsons. The rest... well, the rest had waited, biding their time for _this_.

"A loophole could not be found?"

Rebekah closed her eyes, as though it would shield her from the truth. "No, Elijah. The witches didn't forget that Nik double crossed him. He sealed their magic, so they stole her"

"Every spell-"

"But don't you see the most beautiful, twisted part? _They took Caroline's memories_. Every single moment, from the minute they needed the bloody moonstone, until tonight. It's all gone" Elijah began to open his mouth, and Rebekah hurriedly continued, eager to stop him floating false hope again, "But, she can remember Mystic Falls, her friends, her life before us... before_ him_. Isn't that the most wonderful revenge?"

Elijah paused, a twisted smile dancing across his stony features, "Her life is the loophole"

"She remembers and she dies" Klaus' voice was gruff from misuse, and thick from the emotion he was determined to keep at bay.

Both siblings turned in equal amounts of surpise and sadness. Despite all possessing vampiric hearing, it was forgotten that their tormented brother could hear every word of the terrible tale. He braced either side of the frame, staring ahead, shoulders slumped dejectedly.

"She could walk past us on the street and never know us" Elijah surmised, feeling an ache of sadness at the thought of losing the bright, bubbly blonde who he cared for as another sister.

"And we'll carry on loving her, just the same" Rebekah's teary eyes stared at Klaus, using 'we' when she really meant _him_ - he would love her, he would _always_ love her, for his eternal, undying life... and she would never know.

"Quite the revenge" Elijah admitted softly.

"When the witches promise payback, you know it'll be a bitch" Rebekah agreed.

_Revenge is a dish best served cold._ And cold it was. The years passed, and Caroline lived her life happily, shining bright like the Sun. Klaus followed her, always in the shadows, ready to protect her, yet never basking in her warmth.

One day, she saw him, and for a moment he thought she knew. She had been watching the Northern Lights, her eyes lit up with carefree wonder, and for no possible reason, turned to look at him. And she smiled. Like a sunbeam, it hit him briefly, his own mouth turning up in reply._ How long had it been?_

Within the bat of an eyelash, she had turned away, back to the Lights and away from him.

Forever in the shadows, he felt his cold dead heart grow colder by the day.

And yet he couldn't leave her, would never leave her.

Just loved her for eternity whilst she never looked back.


End file.
